Dallas Opera Commissions Mark Adamo to Pen Holiday Opera

Dallas Opera announced today that it has commissioned American composer and librettist Mark Adamo to write a new holiday opera, which will premiere in December 2015 as part of the company's 2015-16 season.

The announcement was made by Dallas Opera general director and CEO Keith Cerny during a "Composing Conversation" symposium at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas. The as yet unnamed work by Adamo — the composer of Little Women, Lysistrataand the recently premiered The Gospel of Mary Magdalene — is the latest in a series of compositions commissioned by Dallas Opera, which began with Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer's Moby-Dick in 2010. Since then, the company has commissioned Great Scott, a star vehicle for mezzo Joyce DiDonato by Heggie and playwright Terrence McNally, which will premiere in October 2015; and Everest, by British composer Joby Talbot and librettist Gene Scheer, which take the stage at Dallas Opera in February 2015.

"I couldn't be happier to be making my debut with the Dallas Opera," Adamo said in a release issued today by the company. "This has long been one of the most distinguished companies in this country, and I am honored to join its roster of artists."

"I've been keenly interested in Mark Adamo's work for some time," Cerny said. "As a composer-librettist, Mark has shown profound insights into the workings of the human heart and psyche coupled with an ability to create operas and orchestral works that are carefully thought out, meticulously crafted and complex. I find Mark’s music as intellectually and emotionally satisfying as it is beautiful."

Adamo's opera will be conducted by Dallas Opera's recently appointed music director Emmanuel Villaume.

A native of Philadelphia, Adamo served as New York City Opera's composer-in-residence from 2001 through 2006. He first gained national attention with his debut opera, Little Women — based on the novel by Louisa May Alcott — which premiered at Houston Grand Opera in 1998 and has since gone on to receive more than eighty national and international performances, making it one of the most frequently programmed American lyric works of the last fifteen years. Adamo's second opera, Lysistrata, was commissioned by Houston Grand Opera and premiered in March 2005; it received its New York City Opera debut one year later. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, Adamo's third opera, had its world premiere earlier this year at San Francisco Opera.